men aren't working like they used to
plus, i now have to admit that Snapchat is a legit thing
Quick Hits
Professional pickleball signs first international deal in India
Keke Palmer and SZA to star in Issa Rae-produced Buddy comedy
Vampire facials are being linked to presumptive HIV transmission
Newsletter is late because I went to watch Challengers with a friend. I can confirm it’s all very hot and steamy and fun. And that final scene!!! Also, who knew tennis was all it took to get me into techno? Maybe I can enjoy Germany now .
What do Ed Hardy, Von Dutch, and Stüssy have in common? They’re so back, baby! You guys know I think Y2K will never die. It’s one of those eras that had genuinely good fashion (low-waisted jeans aside), and just when you think it’s fading from the hype cycle, you get teens dressing like trucker girlfriends and Snooki Polizzi. In other words, a side of Y2K fashion Carrie Bradshaw would have nothing to do with. Von Dutch and Ed Hardy can both thank Bella Hadid, patron saint of the Y2K comeback, for putting them on the map again. Stüssy stays cool, so they can thank themselves for that.
I did a quick Google search on each of these brands, and here are the most interesting things I found:
Is Ed Hardy clothing cringe? This Reddit thread from 9 months ago is gold. Y’all need to read the comments. I’m actually begging you. My favourite: “They look as if they'd come with free hair gel and a couple of MMA fight tickets.” For some reason the photo of the shorts isn't showing up, but can’t you just picture them?!
'The Curse of Von Dutch' - a Hulu true crime series. At this point, any fashion brand worth their salt has at least one salacious docuseries about it, no? “Donned by the likes of Paris Hilton, Justin Timberlake, and Britney Spears, while simultaneously evolving into a pop-culture phenomenon, were considered the brand's highs. The lows? Greed and backstabbing, followed by bloodshed that caused its demise from the pinnacle of fashion-industry success.” Sounds spicy.
Has Stüssy taken Supreme’s crown? Vogue asks. I say yes.
Are we about to witness the great dating app rebrand? Bumble completely wiped their Instagram feed, and according to their latest post, are planning a relaunch for tomorrow. I'll report back with thoughts then, but to whoever made this decision- good call! Many, including myself, have written about how Gen Z is very much over dating apps. Even the dating apps are over the dating apps! Bumble's new Instagram bio simply says, 'exhausted.' Curious to see if and how the rebrand will also affect the app experience.
Also being revealed tomorrow, is Bella Hadid's new brand, Orebella. I think we can safely assume at this point that this is a fragrance brand. (Horse girl perfume?! GASP!) Taking a page out of Kylie's fragrance playbook, Bella also really wants us to know that her products took FIVE PLUS YEARS to make!
This Substack is a Lauren Sherman stan account. In the second episode of her new podcast, Fashion People, Lauren chatted with “fashion super-buyer” Elizabeth von der Goltz about the rise of quiet luxury and why high fashion is so crazy expensive right now. Like the rest of us, they also don't know how brands like Primark are managing reasonable margins with those ridiculously low prices. I don’t think we want to know.
On Running is launching a new line with FKA Twigs. Following On’s earlier moves into lifestyle footwear and tennis apparel, the Swiss brand will be launching a new training vertical with FKA Twigs as its “long-term creative partner” and face. The line will include sports bras, crop tops, T-shirts, and sweatpants, as well as a version of the brand’s recently launched Cloudtilt sneakers designed by Twigs. When Calvin Klein tapped FKA Twigs for a recent campaign (yeah, that one), I was like okay, this fits. But I’ll tell you now that this is one partnership I did not see coming. Depending on how they decide to play this, it could be a great opportunity for On to reposition themselves in culture. Because right now, when I think On, I think Roger Federer - this is very different than thinking, FKA Twigs. When I think of On, I also think about how pissed their SEO team must be at whoever thought that On would be a great name for a brand. (Great product placement in Challengers btw.)
Did you get your Birkin from a “legit” resale website? If so, there’s a chance they might be stolen. A ring of sophisticated theft gangs is under investigation by the LAPD for breaking into homes in rich LA neighbourhoods - and for no other reason than to steal Birkins! The thieves unload the Birkins to specialized fences for thousands of dollars, who then sell them to legitimate resale sites where Hermès lovers snap them up for relative bargain prices as low as $15,000 a bag. A woman who had her Birkin stolen before seeing it on a resale site months later said of the thieves: “they were like trained assassins.” I will always maintain that the Birkin market should forever remain as is (until I’m rich enough to afford one ofcourse), if only for what it shows us about human nature. Specifically how crazy rich people get when they can't have what they want!
Where did all the stocks go? Ask Big Tech. Did you know that since the late 1990s, the number of US publicly traded companies has plunged from just over 8,000 in 1996 to about 4,600 in 2022? Same. Two leading theories here:
The existence of giant pools of capital outside the public markets through venture capital and private equity allows entrepreneurs to stay private for longer. A 2018 estimate suggested that five times as much equity financing was provided to US companies by private investors than public markets.
But M&As are likely the main culprit. Since the late '90s, a handful of giant, financially powerful technology companies (you know which ones) have snapped up hundreds of smaller firms that could have potentially grown to become publicly traded companies themselves. Data from Crunchbase shows that Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and Nvidia have together acquired a staggering 875 companies!! Good for their shareholders, bad for economic growth.
Still, everyday traders are excited about trading again, as “a lot more degeneracy” takes hold. The S&P 500 had its best first-quarter performance in five years, thanks to individual investors (mostly amateurs). Nvidia shares, a popular stock among individual investors, have soared 77% in 2024, and 10 of the 11 sectors in the S&P 500 are up this year. Large retail brokerages are also seeing this play out in user activity - the average daily number of clients’ trades handled by Charles Schwab rose to nearly six million in the first quarter, and at Morgan Stanley owned E*Trade, self-directed investors placed an average of 841,000 trades a day in the first quarter. For both, it’s the highest level of user activity since early 2022. This is all despite stocks being relatively pricey compared with companies’ underlying profits, inflation being what it is, and interest-rate cuts that may never come.
Men aren’t working like they used to- and it’s showing. See: The Joe Rogan Experience. Also see: the rise of dude podcasts. The share of prime working-age US men with a job has declined from about 96% in the 1950s to 86% today. Many theories abound: more women in the workforce, stay-at-home dads, grad school (good), but also incarceration, addiction, lower wages (bad). One thing's for sure though- for the good of all, we need to get these men back to work!
Cecred launched the #CecredWorks hashtag, showing off how their products work on different hair types. I’m still not 100% convinced for reasons previously explained, but someone on their team might just be reading as seen on.
Snap shares rocketed 28% after the company reported an unexpected profit. Daily active users of Snapchat grew to 422 million in the first three months of the year, beating analyst expectations of 419.6 million. Revenue during the first quarter, meanwhile, rose 21% to $1.2 billion, beating the analyst consensus estimate of $1.12 billion. I’m ashamed to say that until a few months ago, I was a Snapchat denier. I barely used the app since my freshman year of college (and even then, solely for Tinder purposes. IYKYK). It wasn't until I spent a month living with my 13-year-old Gen Alpha sister this spring that I realized how wrong I was. Snapchat might not be for me, but it is certainly for her.
How my sister and her friends use Snapchat: hours spent customizing their Bitmojis, group chats for petty middle school gossip, watching their fave creators, answering anonymous questions on their stories (ask.fm style).
Why they use Snapchat: zero receipts, so they can be cruel and catty in peace, parents don’t think it's as bad as TikTok or IG (so less monitoring), they love streaks! My sister’s Bitmoji has blue eyes and a septum piercing. Is there a conversation to be had?
Did anyone get to see the Glossier-branded taxis and roses in NYC this weekend? If you did but were confused, Glossier launched their YOU perfume as a travel spray, and this is how they chose to celebrate. Fave IG post comment: “consider me Joe Goldberg 'cause I’m in love with YOU♥️🌹🫵.” Same, girl!
ICYMI: we are currently experiencing a significant vibe shift. Across politics, business, education, and the economy, many of the radical shifts experienced in 2020 are being reversed. Policies and societal attitudes on issues from DEI to immigration, policing, WFH, activism, and even standardized testing are changing. Go discuss why in your group chats and come back to me with intelligent theories.
Airbnb is encouraging developers to build condo towers purposefully designed to be listed for short-term rentals. Downtown Miami is ground zero for Airbnb's latest experiment, with over 10 such buildings in development or already open. These built-to-rent apartments are being snapped up by investors who allow them to be rented 365 days a year. Sounds like a hotel, no? Jesse Stein, Airbnb’s global head of real estate, said the company “doesn’t view it as a hotel. We still view it as an individual home.” Sure. Locals are concerned about how this will affect rising home and rent prices, not to mention all the mayhem guests could bring.
According to a recent Morgan Stanley study, 77% of Ozempic (and other GLP-1) users said they started working out weekly after beginning the medication. This is up from 35% of respondents who worked out weekly before using the drug. Now, gyms like Equinox, Life Time Fitness, and Xponential Fitness are betting on GLP-1s to boost membership- some even creating specialized classes to address problem areas for users, such as muscle loss.
L.A. Chess Club is giving nerd culture a Gen Z makeover. It's chess in a warehouse—there's music, drinks, a DJ, tattoo artist, and hundreds of young, smart people. What's not to love? I have three theories to share: 1.) Well-dressed Gen Zs doing anything will almost always automatically make it cool. 2.)This is the long tail of the Queen's Gambit effect. 3.) Gen Z is so desperate for third spaces to gather and JUST DO STUFF! This one is less theory and more just obvious to anyone paying attention. How are brands not doing more here?!"
I'll send you guys off with this beautiful essay examining our collective obsession with the 'Literary It Girl.' If you're on the Bookstagram or Substack side of the internet, you know what I'm talking about. If not, here's a primer.
